Baby development week 33 | New baby blog

We arrive in France a few days ago for a fabulous wedding, this is our first family trip abroad and we are away for ten days in total.

Baby development week 33 -Travelling with a baby

Ryan organised the whole trip. Apart from the wedding, everything else was a surprise. How exciting, I love surprises!

We chilled out for the day after the wedding, but the day after that, Ryan told me to be quick to leave in the morning as we have a full day planned.

We started driving, but after awhile I could see that we were getting closer and closer to the airport, my first thought was maybe we are flying to the south of France! Oooh, beach time, I’d like that very much!

I was right about flying somewhere, but I was not right about the destination. It turned out we were flying out of the country... to Italy!

As we landed in Milan, Ryan still wouldn’t spill the beans, I could see he was enjoying this guessing game too much.

We have been to Milan a couple of years ago so I knew we weren’t going to stay around. Even Naly seemed intrigued, she didn’t mind the short flight in the morning, but as we picked up our hire car, she didn’t want to sit again.

She pushed her feet against the baby car seat, and wouldn’t bend her knees to sit down. I didn’t blame her, she must have been fed up at being strapped down so much. She was ready for some sight-seeing.

Luckily as soon as the car started moving she fell asleep straight away. I studied the road signs for a clue of where we might be going. Signs for ‘Como’ kept appearing...

I asked Ryan: “Is this ‘Como’ the same as ‘Lake Como’? Where George Clooney has a villa??” He replied:” Maybe...” and his lips curled up.

It clicked, we are going to Lake Como! I was beaming with excitement.

Child-Friendly Lake Como

We spent four days in Lake Como and it was a wonderful experience. It’s a big place with lots of small towns dotted around the lake.

It has everything we like: mountains and lakes, charming old Italian villas, fantastic food, friendly locals and great shops. It’s full of character and very picturesque, plus the weather has been sunny and warm.

It’s also a very child-friendly place, all the restaurants have high-chairs. And the Italians are very family-orientated, they love children.

Naly got a lot of attention. She has been particularly charming herself, ‘flirting’ with people around us in restaurants, flashing her smiles wherever we go. If we had a pound for every time someone has come up to us to tell us what a lovely baby she is, we would’ve paid for all of our meals for the trip, and we love eating!

The swimming trips I took Naly on before we went on holiday have paid off. We were able to get her in the lake one day, it was a little on the cold side, but I put a baby wetsuit on her to keep her warm.

She enjoyed it very much, especially with a stunning mountain as the backdrop. She flapped her arms about, trying to drink the lake water, I think she was very curious. It was really nice to see her in a natural environment.

I think our first family holiday was a success, we had an amazing time in both destinations.

We had worries that travelling with a baby might be difficult, but you just have to be organised and bring a few essentials like a travel steriliser and a light-weight stroller, most of other things you can find in the supermarket. Of course it's a lot easier when your breast-feeding!

We did have to bring our own baby car seat because the car hire companies couldn’t guarantee there will be one on arrival, and we didn’t want to take our chances.

Naly enjoyed the stimulation and looking at new things and meeting new people everyday, she slept very well each night.

And with our room cleaned, bed made everyday, what’s there not to enjoy? If only we had this service at home!